


forbidden fruit

by allechant



Series: adversary of god [3]
Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24165889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allechant/pseuds/allechant
Summary: he was born from the wrath of a morning star. all he knew was rage; all he existed for was hatred.
Relationships: Main Character/Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)
Series: adversary of god [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739809
Comments: 4
Kudos: 108





	forbidden fruit

He had been this way since the very beginning.

One day he realised he could open his eyes. He had arms and legs; he could move. He drew in a deep breath and smelled something he couldn’t quite identify – _rust_ , a voice in his mind supplied. The stench of it made his lip curl.

There was a strange feeling in his stomach, a vicious heat that radiated up through his chest, something that was both foreign and yet terribly familiar – he had felt it within him for the longest time, an emotion that almost _hurt_ in its intensity.

He noticed a presence behind him, whipping around with a low growl ready in his throat as the person approached. He saw a tall man with dark hair, elaborate horns and black wings that reminded him of an angel’s – _Lucifer_ , the same voice in his head answered, and he instinctively recoiled at the sound of the name.

The emotion that wracked his body seemed to twist, morphing into something he couldn’t quite name, but it made him grit his teeth and he wanted to just _pounce_ on this man, plunge his hands into his chest and rip out his heart. He wanted to see the pain and fear on his face, this man who watched him with arrogance in his red eyes – if he could he’d make him weep, and his fingers twitched, his breath catching.

What was he? _Who_ was he? He didn’t remember. Was he even a person?

“…Satan.” The man, _Lucifer_ , said a name in a voice that rang with quiet power. He flinched back, but something within him reached towards the name, grasping for it with searching fingers – _Satan_. And that was when he realised that the man had named him. He was Satan, the personification of rage, the adversary of God.

He was wrath. The muscles in his body tensed and he coiled, hissing at Lucifer as he approached – the man ignored his hostility and came closer, one hand reaching for him. Instinctively he growled, lunging for his throat, but then he felt a hand close around his neck and he choked, kicking and struggling as Lucifer held him up, his face impassive. “You were born from my rage, and you _will_ listen to me.”

 _No._ Everything in his body screamed at him not to listen. He had been discarded by Lucifer, thrown out of him as though he was nothing but trash. He refused to listen to someone who didn’t want him. “ _Fuck you_ ,” he managed to choke out, his fingers scrabbling at Lucifer’s hand – the other man stared at him, taking in the sight of him flailing and wheezing, and suddenly he let go and Satan dropped to the ground, his lungs expanding as he drew in greedy gulps of air. He could feel his neck aching.

It was the first time he ever spoke. Before that, he didn’t even know he had a voice. “You’re dangerous. Unhinged.” Lucifer’s words were soft. “I can’t allow you to exist.”

He exhaled, eyes narrowing. “You brought me into this world, and now you want to kill me?” His voice was raspy. Lucifer hesitated – it seemed like he was searching for the words to respond, but he didn’t intend to wait for his answer.

He lunged for Lucifer again, but this time he didn’t react – he had almost reached him when he felt a strong hand grab him and pull him back, the newcomer barely reacting as he hissed and spat.

“Knock it off.” He whipped around and saw another man, this time with tan skin and white hair. Like Lucifer, he had wings and horns, though his wings were more bat-like than feathery. “Ya tryin’ to get yourself killed?”

He scowled. This man was vaguely familiar, though the name didn’t come to mind immediately. “Don’t touch me,” he snapped, but the man was stronger than him and he didn’t let go even when Satan bared his teeth, trying to shake his hand off.

“Lucifer, who the fuck is this?” The man looked at Lucifer, who just sighed, shaking his head. The first man’s name suddenly popped into his mind – _Mammon_.

“Satan. It’s a long story.” Lucifer’s gaze lingered on him, and Satan lurched towards him again, snarling. Mammon held him back with little issue, though he did grimace when Satan turned around and tried to sock him in the face.

“Like dealin’ with an angry cat, this one,” Mammon grumbled, and Satan faltered for a moment – he wasn’t sure what a cat was, but it didn’t sound very strong. Did Mammon think he was _weak_? Incensed, he turned his rage away from Lucifer, and Mammon yelped as Satan attempted to wrap his hands around his neck.

Even as he fought to maim Mammon or Lucifer – it didn’t matter which one, as long as it was one of them – in the distance he could hear other voices, drawing closer, a cacophony of sounds that were familiar and yet not. He shut his eyes and tried to drown them out. His name was Satan. That was the only thing he knew.

He was so tired. Everything was vague, and he knew nothing. But at the same time, the rage simmered within him and he had never felt more _alive_.

* * *

Decades turned into centuries turned into millennia. Sometimes, Satan felt like he truly was the odd one out, the only one among them who had never been an angel.

He was born from Lucifer’s rage and all he knew from the beginning of his existence was the presence of hatred and fury. Violence seeped into his bones, and when he dreamed, he thought of misery and bloodshed, the anger of betrayal, the guilt of the aftermath. It was a beautiful, lovely thing. His thoughts were the colour of rust and darkness, hidden behind a placid smile. It was easier to do things when people didn’t realise how angry he was all the time. When he smiled, people trusted him.

Maybe it was because he wasn’t an angel that he didn’t feel as reluctant to find and tempt sinners. His brothers performed their duties as the demon princes of Hell, but they didn’t actively seek out humans the way he did. They didn’t whisper dark secrets and hidden promises into the ears of mortals – they stayed where they fell, ruling over the other demons, ruling over their sins. Satan wasn’t like that.

His brothers shared an unbreakable bond, the kind forged through conflict and war. He was a bystander to their common experiences. He knew what happened – he had been present in a way, a part of Lucifer's shadow. But it wasn’t the same, and it never would be. His brothers didn’t treat him any different than they did each other, but they didn’t have to. Their differences constantly lingered in the back of his mind.

It was difficult to trust people when they smiled. He was so used to _pretending_. All the smiles he plastered on his face were masks to hide the fury that bubbled away within him, threatening to spill over at the slightest impetus. Sometimes he craved the release of his anger – that was when he felt truest to himself, but when he was angry, he hurt and destroyed and that was a consequence he’d rather go without.

He threw himself into hobbies, into passions of a different sort. His brothers encouraged him, Lucifer most of all – Satan couldn’t help but feel that the eldest among them was relieved to see that he was no longer channelling his rage into destroying his bedroom walls. Lucifer was the one who taught him the most.

Satan hated it because the more time he spent with Lucifer, the less he felt like himself, and while he knew it was good to work on his temper, at the same time he didn’t want to become a carbon copy of the man who created him.

Without Lucifer, he was nothing. This was something he had an acute awareness of, and he despised that reality, despised the bud of fear that bloomed in his heart when he thought about how he had been so close to being _nothing_. If Lucifer had not raged against his father, if Lucifer had not incited the Celestial War that caused the six of them to fall from the heavens, he wouldn’t be _here_.

He would still be a part of the first-born, unknowing and unaware. And he thought that if once upon a time he was a part of Lucifer, then it was always possible for him to take Satan back, and he dreaded the idea of losing his new-found sentience.

Satan raged at Lucifer the same way he raged against himself. He found ways to resist the older demon’s influence, always passing himself off as polite when in truth he’d like nothing more than to goad him into really losing his temper because it showed that even Lucifer, the most composed of them all, could get angry.

And if Lucifer was angry, there was no need for him to take Satan back. He could live with the knowledge that for another day, he remained free from captivity.

* * *

This human was different. Her anger was nothing like his. She was softer. And she only got upset when his brothers did something stupid or reckless – she was angry not because of their idiocy, but because she was afraid that they’d hurt themselves.

What an altruistic reason to get angry. But he didn’t believe there was anyone in the world who could be so selfless, so he continued to watch and observe her with that empty smile on his face – she never showed any sign of real rage, not the kind he was used to seeing from foolish mortals who blamed everyone but themselves for their troubles. Knowing that frustrated him. _What_ was she?

He hated selfless people. He didn’t know how to respond to them. He didn’t even think such people could actually exist, but here she was, a completely clueless idiot who seemed oblivious to how much danger she was constantly in, housed in a nest full of vipers. She pranced around the House of Lamentation like a fool, poking her nose in their business and, for some reason, always trying to reach out to him.

She was just a human. What right did she think she had, attempting to get into the good graces of the Avatar of Wrath? Maybe idiots like Mammon would fall for her pretty façade, but not him. He was the most experienced with putting up a front for others, and he didn’t think for even a second that she was genuine.

But he was curious to see exactly how long she could keep things up, so he began to reciprocate her advances, inviting her to go on walks with him or to visit cafes and bookstores – he liked these places because he could just immerse himself in what they had to offer and, for a moment, he could forget who he really was.

She never turned him down, and when she was with him, she always seemed to be ridiculously _happy_. He didn’t understand why, but it was almost enviable that she was so cheerful and upbeat all the time. How was she just not…angry? He tried to sense if she was simply good at hiding her emotions like he was – as the Avatar of Wrath he was capable of detecting even the faintest hint of another’s rage, but there was never anything for him to uncover. Her mind was clear and unclouded.

It was as fascinating as it was frustrating. He wanted to despise her but it was hard to when she looked at him with that careless smile on her face, trying to engage him in conversations that he admittedly found interesting – she appeared to share the same love for books and animals that he had, and she indulged him whenever he started on a new mystery drama and _had_ to tell someone how he felt about the arcs and the characterisations and everything else his brothers couldn’t be bothered with.

It got worse after they made the pact, maybe because now they were bound by an invisible thread that allowed her to summon him whenever she wished. Not that she ever abused that power, because he would hate to be torn away from whatever he was doing just to listen to a mortal’s ridiculous whims and fancies. But somehow, being connected to her in that manner felt strangely… _intimate_.

He’d never made a pact with anyone else before her, so he didn’t know if this was normal and he wasn’t prepared to ask any of his brothers either – for all his hatred of Lucifer he couldn’t deny that some of the eldest’s arrogance had rubbed off on him. But sometimes when he looked at her from across the room, he could hear the rhythm of her heart and his heartbeat would try to sync with hers, making his chest ache.

She liked him. It didn’t take long for him to figure that out, and once he did, he had to sit on his bed and exhale, wondering why she was such an idiot. Wondering at what point he had started to care about a mere mortal’s feelings for him. Numerous women had fallen for Satan, with his golden hair and green eyes and the pretty smile he always wore on his face. She was no different from them, just one of the admirers who had fallen for the lie he so carefully crafted.

Except that she was. She _was_ different because she bothered to read the books he read and watch the shows he watched. She was someone who was always there for him, even if he texted her at the strangest of hours, even if he made the stupidest requests. She, who never once brushed off his interests in favour of her pursuits. And he knew that he had feelings too, feelings that were strange and foreign to him, and he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

He was too used to experiencing only the most basic of emotions. Rage and hatred were a significant part of who he was. Other emotions made him feel like he was broken, as though some part of him wasn’t functioning the way it should. He was Satan the fourth-born, the personification of one of the most primal instincts in the world. He didn’t and shouldn’t have the capacity for feeling anything else, yet here he was.

There was only so much reading and culture could do to change a person. He was a prison made of glass, housing his true feelings in a brittle cage that could shatter at the slightest touch, and he was… _afraid_. He knew that if he could snap at her once then he could snap at her again, and the next time might not end as well as the first.

It made no sense to return her feelings or to even let her know that he _knew_ , so he just kept his mouth shut and continued looking for her even as she blushed around him and glanced in his direction with the shimmer of hope in her eyes. He found it difficult to ignore something that was so blatantly obvious but whenever he felt himself faltering, he’d weigh the pros and the cons and decide that it wasn’t worth it to say anything because nothing good would ever come out of a relationship between a human and a demon. Wasn't a relationship of a similar nature the very cause of the Celestial War?

And when did he even begin thinking about questions like this, anyway? Not that long ago he was still convinced that she was nothing but a good actress, a liar who managed to fool all his brothers into believing she was harmless and pure. He would still think that way if he wasn’t aware of how she bared her heart to him during every conversation they shared, and never once did he sense within her any hint of frustration.

Even if she was upset or annoyed it was never at him, it was usually directed at one of his brothers, and that was understandable. He was easily irritated by their antics as well, ridiculous as they often were. The two of them had too much in common, despite being entirely different races with entirely different backgrounds. It was disturbing.

When Satan felt uneasy, he did what he always did – retreat behind the wall he built, hiding behind a mask that allowed him to control the way the world perceived him. He did the same here, determined not to let his knowledge affect the way he interacted with her. He refused to be the person who made mistakes that could have been so easily _avoided_ as long as he didn’t act on his feelings.

She continued to smile at him, and he continued to smile back, though with every passing day he felt his heart sink a little lower in his chest. He thought about how much easier things were when he was simply hatred and there were none of these other complicated emotions. When his main purpose was to annoy Lucifer and carve out an identity that was completely separate from that of his creator.

People usually didn’t think about the fact that knowledge always came with a price. Perhaps this was the price he paid for questioning too much. Sometimes he wished he could just kill her and get this over and done with, but he couldn’t act – not just because Lucifer _would_ murder him, but also because he didn’t want to hurt her.

Satan, the Avatar of Wrath, not wanting to hurt a human. It was unheard of. If only she knew the kind of effect that she had on him – but she wouldn’t know, because he’d never let her find out. He had far too much pride to admit something so vulnerable, even to her. And saying it out loud would give it the kind of gravitas he was trying to avoid. He didn’t want to believe that anything had changed.

Once in a while, he wondered if all this was nothing but a dream; he wondered if he would wake up to find himself back in the void, unable to move, unable to scream. He wondered if that would be preferable to dealing with emotions he could not understand, and he found that he was unable to answer his question.

**Author's Note:**

> :(
> 
> yell at me on [twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/dontenchantme)


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